


The Ice Queen and His Only Man

by Hippety



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-08
Updated: 2012-09-10
Packaged: 2017-11-13 20:19:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/507347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hippety/pseuds/Hippety
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft is not good with emotions and is therefore confused after Greg has left him. Every other chapter is set in the present and every second chapter is a flashback at their lives and their relationship together. Both in Greg's and Mycroft's POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've previously posted this fic on fanfiction.net, but I've decided to share it here as well, in a slightly more updated version.  
> DISCLAIMER: I won't update this particular story further, instead rework it and use parts of it in another, hopefully better story.

## Chapter 1 - Believe Me When I Beg You

 _Believe me when I beg you_  
 _Don't ever leave me alone._  
\- Oh! Darling, The Beatles

________________________________________

‘Good luck sir.’  
Anthea gave her boss an encouraging nod and looked up at him from her mobile as Mycroft Holmes stepped out of the black car with darkened window.  
 _I am without any doubt going to need it_ he thought as he looked up at the rundown apartment building in front of him as the car drove away along the gloomy street somewhere in the south of London. A few yards from him a group of young teenage boys peered at him as he made his way to the door of the building. One of them made a snide comment about him, somewhere along the lines of "posh aristocrats should stay at their clubs…" and Mycroft gave him a disapproving gaze while he pressed one of the bells next to the entrance.  
‘Hello.’  
Mycroft's heart almost skipped a beat when he heard the raspy muted voice and he exhaled a little louder than he had hoped before he answered.  
‘It… It's me. I thought we needed to talk.’  
He didn't get a response but the lock of the door gave a small buzz after what seemed to Mycroft like an eternity. He opened it and was just entering the building when one of the boys of the group made another comment, this time suggesting where Mycroft and his "dressed-up bureaucratic mates that destroys the country" should stick up their umbrellas. Mycroft was just going to answer the young man but then he changed his mind.  
He had more important matters to take care of.  
________________________________________  
Gregory Lestrade groaned very loudly when he found that the cover of his original Abbey Road vinyl record had a small scratch on it, just under Paul McCartney's unclothed left foot. John had been very kind and fetched his rather massive record collection, but due to both his and Greg's unpredictable working hours, Greg's precious records, carelessly packed in a handful of cardboard boxes, had been forced to spend a night at the battlefield that was 221B at the moment. Sherlock had been on his way to examine the damage on the left side of one of the boxes caused by a fall from a two-story building ("The information is vital for the case of the Danish ambassador John!") but fortunately his flatmate had stopped him in time. However, Sherlock had managed, and Greg was sure this was on purpose, to drop one of the boxes containing his beloved Beatles records when he was trying to help John and Greg to move the cardboard boxes into a taxi to take the records to Greg's new apartment.

But he couldn't be bothered about the scratch now – he had just come home after working for nineteen hours in a row and just wanted to listen to a few good tracks while making a late dinner, so he ignored it and put on the A side, jumping over the first few tracks to one of the songs that he appreciated the most – Oh! Darling.  
To the sound of McCartney's pleading voice he turned to the refrigerator and took out some leftovers and a can of coke. He had just sat down by the small second hand table and opened up the can when the weary sound of the doorbell rang out.  
 _If that damned gang of teenage chaps are trying to make me buy cigarettes for them again, I will throw them out of a window_ he thought while slowly moving to the old phone by the apartment's front door.

‘Hello.’  
He heard the trembling sound of someone exhaling, and then the even more trembling voice of the older Holmes brother.  
‘It… It's me. I thought we needed to talk.’  
Greg was taken by surprise and wasn't sure how to react. He wasn't really in the mood for a long demanding conversation, but then realised that this moment was just as good as any, and therefore he pressed the buttoned that opened the main door of the building.  
He couldn't make himself move, so he remained on the same spot until he heard a soft knock on the door a few inches away from him. Greg took a deep breath and then opened it, and found Mycroft, in an expensive-looking cashmere coat and with an umbrella in his hand, in front of him.  
They didn't say anything for a few minutes. Mycroft did his best trying to get eye contact with the detective inspector but Greg stared absently at a stain on the doormat. The government official was the one to first break the empty silence.  
‘I am very much aware of that you do not wish to speak to me but-’  
‘Why are you here then?’  
Greg interrupted him angrily and turned around heading for the shabby sofa in the living room.  
‘Because I don't understand, Gregory.’  
Greg looked up at the government official. He had noticed the quivering in Mycroft's voice and saw that he watched him carefully from the doorstep.  
‘Oh, look how the mighty have fallen’ he snorted back, but then eased up a bit and gestured Mycroft to come in.  
‘I don't understand why you have…’ Greg saw how much Mycroft considered his choice of words before he finished the sentence, ‘left me.’  
The detective inspector sighed and then said: ‘Because I'm tired of waiting.’  
‘I…’ once again Mycroft stumbled on his words, ‘Please explain this for me Gregory.’  
‘I'm not Gregory to you anymore, I'm detective inspector Lestrade.’  
Mycroft flinched as if someone had hit him when Greg uttered these words. He looked down on his former boyfriend and saw the cool indifference in his eyes.


	2. Life Is A Minestrone

**Chapter 2 – Life Is A Minestrone**

_Life is a minestrone, served up with parmesan cheese._  
 _Death is a cold lasagne, suspended in deep freeze._  
\- Life Is A Minestrone, 10cc  
________________________________________  
14th of May, 2009

Greg walked along Great George Street and stopped outside the really elegant and classy restaurant _Roux at Parliament Square_. Mycroft had offered to send a car for him, but he had decided that it would be for the best if he could have a few moments to himself before going on the date, ( _because you know it's a date, Greg)_  with who was, at least according to the inhabitants of 221B Baker Street, the British Government. Greg was not really that concerned about that part, it was the fact that the older Holmes brother looked so unceasingly dashing whenever they met that worried him.  
The summer had arrived early and the weather was pleasantly warm. It hadn't rained during the last couple of days and the days began to be longer, and theerfore also the nights shorter. He pulled a hand through his grey hair (for what must have been the twentieth time just since he left the Yard) and then stepped into the restaurant where he was greeted by a well-groomed waiter who took his coat and then showed him into one of the more private rooms without saying a single word.  
At one of the tables clad in table clothes that were even whiter than snow, sat Mycroft Holmes, who was dressed in an exquisite dark blue three piece suit with an accompanying discreetly striped tie. He looked at Gregory and smiled at him shyly as the detective inspector sat down in the chair opposite to him.  
‘I'm sorry that I'm late, but I had to or prevent World War III. Your brother decided that it was a good time to pick a fight with Anderson concerning his skills, or according to Sherlock, his lack of them, as a forensic scientist when I was just about to leave.’  
Greg smiled at the government official who nodded back at him and said:  
‘Sherlock can sometimes be a, how shall put it…’  
‘Right pain in the arse?’ said Greg jokingly and started to read his leather-bound menu.  
‘I was going to say childish twelve year-old who doesn't know when to shut his mouth, but your suggestion might fit even better. Have you decided what you want to eat?’  
‘To be honest, I don't understand the menu.’ Greg said and looked embarrassly down at the napkin lying on the table in front of him. ‘You should have told me that we were going here so I could have chosen some more fitting clothes and so I could have practised my incredibly bad French. I thought that we were going somewhere more domestic, like a fish and chips shop or something…’  
To be honest, Greg hadn't imagined going somewhere domestic, this was after all Mycroft Holmes, but he had at least hoped for it. Mycroft smiled at his statement, that kind of genuine smile which Greg just had witnessed an easy countable number of times on the government official's face.  
‘No worries detective inspector, shall I order for the both of us?’  
‘That would be great. And you can call me by my first name if you want to, all my friends do.’  
It was clear to see that Mycroft was a bit taken by surprise by his words, but that moment didn't last for too long.  
‘Very well then. How about the minestrone as starter, Gregory?’  
Mycroft said his name slower than he needed to, like it was a word from an extraneous foreign language, and Greg felt his cheeks turn red. _Put yourself together; don't behave like an enamoured teenager who doesn't know how to behave in public_ , he thought to himself and then gathered enough calm to respond.  
‘Only my grandmother calls me Gregory.’  
‘Not anymore.’ Mycroft looked at him from across the table, and Greg was prepared to bet his right arm on that there was something teasing and priggish about the smile Mycroft gave him.  
‘If you do not want the minestrone I am sure that they could make some _poisson et frites_ for you…’


	3. Problems That You Made In Your Own Head

**Chapter 3 - Problems That You Made In Your Own Head**

_But it was not your fault but mine._

_And it was your heart on the line._

_I really fucked it up this time._

_Didn't I, my dear?_

_-_ Little Lion Man, Mumford And Sons

* * *

‘Sorry, that was harsh.’

Mycroft couldn't bear to look his former boyfriend in his eyes. He felt more insecure and uncertain than he had ever done in his whole life; including the first time he had told Greg that he loved him. That had been a nice and tender moment, especially since Greg had told him that he loved him too. But now it felt like that precious event had taken place hundreds of years ago.

_Concentrate, Mycroft. You might to be able to fix this somehow._

Greg spoke again:

‘Mycroft.’ Greg made a point of carefully say his name. ‘I'm tired of waiting, it always feels as if I'm waiting for you. You can on a few seconds notice leave for China to prevent a nuclear war or have secret meetings with the prime minister at unearthly hours to save England's economy. I understand that these are things you have to do; it's just that I don't like having to wait for two weeks to be able to speak with my boyfriend. And when I actually get the chance to talk to you, on the phone or by text, you're very secretive and laconic.’

‘You know that I cannot tell you anything about my work, or where I am.’ Mycroft's respond was very uncomprehending. He tapped an unsteady rhythm on the handle of his umbrella, but then suddenly stopped and looked out of the window. It was quite dark outside at the moment, and it looked as if it was going to start raining any second.

‘It's not just that. I'm getting a bit tired of the whole mysterious thing. I don't appreciate being picked up by black cars taking me to some completely random location. I don't know what you're trying to achieve with that. Before I actually met you I thought John was exaggerating when he talked about “Sherlock's older brother with his annoying power complex”.’

The government official frowned and Greg saw that his brain was working at maximal capacity.

‘Or the fact that we've been together for almost two years and that we still haven't slept together. I don't want to stress you, because I know that you find those things… _difficult_  to deal with, but I'm growing a bit tired, Mycroft.’

‘I just do not know how to act around you, or what you want me to do. I did not think that you would be interested in my life, since I do not live a very exciting or thrilling one.’

‘That's not the point, Myc. It's  _your_ life, and that's why I want to know about it.’ Greg smiled for the first time for over a month at Mycroft.  _And maybe, but just maybe, there's a small, extremely tiny chance that he might actually forgive me,_ Mycroft thought while looking at the gentle face in front of him.

‘It's just that this is so very new and difficult for me, Gregory. I am trying, by God I am trying, to get this right and I have always tried to get this to work out for the best.’ Mycroft cleared his throat and then swallowed hard. He couldn't bear to look at Greg sitting on the sofa in front of him, so he turned around and looked out of the dirty window, doing his best not to cry.

‘Oh, don't look away Mycroft, that's also one of the contributing factors to why we ended up here in the first place.’ Greg stood up and walked up to Mycroft, who by those words started to cry silently. The detective inspector put his right hand on his former boyfriend's shoulder, but Mycroft still couldn't look the other man in the eyes, so he just kept on staring out of the window at the dim light from the lampposts on the street.

‘Look at me Myc, come on look at me,’ Greg said tentatively, trying to meet the other man's gaze. ‘We'll fix this; at least we'll try, okay?’

Mycroft inhaled sharply and nodded. ‘Are you sure you want to? When you left our- _my_  apartment the other day you said you did not want to speak with me ever again.’

‘And yet here we are.’ Greg smiled gently at him and led him to the small worn sofa where they both sat down.

The government official pulled out a neat handkerchief from an inside pocket of his suit jacket and blew his nose with it. Then he suddenly had his serious face on again, but he still sounded quite insecure when he began to speak.

‘But what caused your sudden departure? You did not really give me some kind of a warning…’

‘What do you think, Mycroft? You're the smartest man I've ever met and still you can't understand these things.’

‘I am sorry Gregory.’ Mycroft looked uneasily at his former boyfriend who sat next to him. He concentrated very hard at the problem in front of him for a few moments, and then turned his whole body towards Greg. ‘Was it because…’ he closed his eyes and looked very puzzled as he continued ‘ _I_ left  _you_ that night, when your… when your mother had died?’

This time it was Greg's turn to not look the other man in the eyes, so he just, almost unnoticeably, nodded.


End file.
